Mice, although small, can still cause much damage. They destroy articles such as food, books, furniture and even appliances with their gnawing, urine and faeces. Another undesirable trait associated with mice, particularly in domestic environments, is their association with a variety of human diseases, such as for example, asthma. Mice can also spread a variety of organisms that can cause diseases of humans and pets. These include a variety of food poisoning bacteria like Salmonella, Shigella, Escherichia coli (E. coli), and others. While the risk of mouse invasion is able to be somewhat controlled or minimised by preventing food waste such as crumbs accumulating in the home, or ensuring that stored food is isolated from the external environment in, for example, sealed containers, it is not always possible to ensure that no food will be left exposed for a period of time. Also, minimising the risk of mice invasion by sealing of cracks, spaces and openings such as vents, pipes and chimney access points can be an expensive, labour intensive and time consuming exercise and is not always possible.
Traditional methods of dealing with mouse invasion in the home involves the use of poisoned baits (rodenticides) that contain anticoagulants, such as warfarin, pival and chlorophacinone. Such baits, while effective, are nevertheless toxic and are therefore undesirable for use in the home, particularly those in which children and pets reside. In addition, poisoned mice often die in inaccessible locations thereby resulting in an unpleasant odor upon death of the mouse. To circumvent these problems, mousetraps are often employed instead of poisoned baits. Traps are generally preferred as these are less hazardous to use around children and pets. Because mice are caught by the trap, there is less chance of odor from mice dying in wall voids or other inaccessible areas. Mousetraps in the form of wooden-based snap traps are common. While these traps are generally effective, they have the problem of exposing the homeowner, for example, to the highly undesirable task of disposing of the dead mouse once trapped. In addition, once trapped, the exposed dead mouse can pose health problems or cause distress to, for example, children. Furthermore, such traps are also pose a danger to children and pets who may inadvertently activate the trigger and injure themselves. Whilst mousetraps have been developed in which a trap is located within an enclosure in an attempt to isolate the trap from the outside environment and somewhat conceal the dead mouse from view, the enclosure of such mousetraps are not self-sealing after trapping and therefore the home-owner is still exposed to the dead mouse when disposing of the mouse and/or the trap.
While recognising the shortcomings of prior art mousetraps, the present inventors have sought to overcome these deficiencies with a mousetrap that substantially isolates the trap mechanism and a trapped mouse from the external environment. Such traps are desirably simple and cost effective to manufacture and are also able to efficiently trap mice. Such a mousetrap has been described in co-pending application GB 03254463 by the same applicants, the contents of which are incorporated herein in their entirety by reference. The present invention provides an alternative to the mousetrap described in GB 03254463.